By Brandon Boyer, Staff Writer

Published in print Oct. 29, 2014

With the basketball season fast approaching from the horizon, UNCG put together an event akin to what UNC -Chapel Hill or the University of Kentucky would put on to get fans and students excited for the upcoming season.

In its first year of existence, this hype event/pep rally in Fleming Gymnasium was known as Spartan Madness.

The 90-minute event featured tunes spun by DJ NC individual player introductions for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams, coordinated dance numbers, loads of free basketball items for those in attendance and two, 10-minute scrimmages.

The madness kicked off with the men’s introductions, which saw the introduction of four Freshman players to the team: Guard/Forward, Marvin Smith, Guard, Garrett Collins, Center, Lloyd Burgess, and Guard, C.J. Coleman.

Following the introduction of senior players Nicholas Paulos and Jamal Mitchell, the players performed a phenomenal coordinated number with the UNCG dance team, The Spartan G’s.

The women’s basketball team followed suit with an introduction of their own, but one with a little more complexity to it.

All but four introduced stayed in the stands with those in attendance, rather than hopping down to the basketball court, much to the confusion of many students.

What it ended up leading to was a fantastic, West Side Story-esque dance battle, between players in full grey sweats and those in the glow-in-the-dark Spartan Madness t-shirts.

Once the women’s team cleared the floor and following a prolonged pause in proceedings, the women’s team returned to the court, this time in white and navy blue basketball uniforms, to warm up.

The following scrimmage saw the teams finish out the ten-minute period tied up at 19-a-piece.

The men’s team then came out for their own scrimmage, which saw them do a light warm-up, but led not to a scrimmage initially, but a dunk contest.

Looking more like the traditional format from the 1990’s version of the NBA dunk contest, some players went alone and slammed down one and two-handed windmills and a few reverse dunks.

By far the crowd’s favorite in the contest was 6-foot tall sophomore, Clay Byrd.

With many mimicking the flight of a bird whenever he had the ball, the undersized guard flew through the air off his own setups and bounce passes off the glass with ease.

The scrimmage itself had the sort of feel about it that a scrimmage should: light-hearted and show-offy.

Tevon Saddler, RJ White, and Kayel Locke dominated for their respective teams. Saddler weaved and spun through the maze of defenders to finish off a beautiful finger roll with about 2 minutes left to play.

White and Locke rocked the glass and even finished with a couple of dunks for emphasis. Paulos drained a sweet three for the blue team with about a minute left in the game.

Though it finished off 20-17, the score did not really matter.

You could tell that the guys had fun being out on the court, playing the sport they love in front of a packed out Fleming Gymnasium.

After the Madness filed out of the doors, I asked a couple students what they thought about the night and the season ahead.

“Watching them play, they look like they’re in for a very promising season,” said Katie Krauss about the men’s basketball team.

“From what I saw, it looked like they had a little trouble shooting under pressure, but I think that’s something that they can clean up.”

In regards to the inaugural Spartan Madness, Yatzel Hernandez said, “I really liked the atmosphere in there. It was very happy and cheery.”

The Spartans Men’s basketball team has their first game against Chowan on Friday, November 14th in the Fleming Gymnasium.

The women’s basketball team will tip-off at Clemson on the same day, but will play host for the first time this season against University of South Carolina Upstate on Thursday, November 20th in the Fleming Gymnasium.